Big Brother Slovenia

At the end of April, the Office of the Human Rights Ombudsman of Slovenia found that human rights are being violated on the reality show Big Brother. Despite this serious accusation, the show goes on.

The Human Rights Ombudsman, Zdenka Čebašek-Travnik, has found that the reality show Big Brother, currently being aired by the Slovenian TV station Kanal A, contains violence and degrading behaviour with and among the participants, which violates the dignity and other human rights of those in the house. Furthermore, the ombudsman found that the fact that children are exposed to watching the show also qualifies as a breech of the Convention on the Rights of the Child. As Čebašek-Travnik states, “The prohibition of torture, and inhuman and degrading punishment is outlined in Article 18 of the Slovenian Constitution. This prohibition ... is absolute, which means that any kind of consent to this kind of behaviour by the victim still does not make such actions permissible.”

The ombudsman has made this official complaint against the producers of the show, following many complaints to her office that human rights were being violated in the house. Although not clearly stated, this questionable behaviour includes the contestants being forced to live in lodgings where only the bare minimum of hygienic requirements are met, while forced to wade through and sort piles of garbage and waste, having to strip to their underwear every time they go from one part of the house to another, weekly tasks which include being locked up in cages, or led around on a leash as dogs, only allowed to eat and drink when their “master” allows, and others.